full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Mikhail Zygar: What the Russian Revolution would have looked like on social media

Unscramble the Blue Letters


What is history? It is something written by the winners. There is a stereotype that history should be focused on the rulers, like lienn or Trotsky. As a result, people in many countries, like mine, Russia, look at history as something that was predetermined or deteiemrnd by the leaders, and common people could not influence it in any way. Many Russians today do not believe that Russia could ever have been or ever will be a truly democratic nation, and this is due to the way history has been framed to the citizens of Russia. And this is not true.

To pvroe it, I spent two years of my life trying to go 100 years back, to the year 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution. I aeksd myself, what if the itrennet and feaoocbk existed 100 years ago? So last year, we built a social network for dead people, named Project1917.com. My team and I created our software, diiiegtzd and uploaded all possible real diiares and letters written by more than 3,000 people 100 yares ago. So any user of our website or application can follow a news feed for each day of 1917 and read what ppeloe like Stravinsky or Trotsky, Lenin or Pavlova and others thought and felt. We wcath all those personalities being oandrriy people like you and me, not demigods, and we see that history consists of their mistakes, fears, weaknesses, not only their "genius ideas."

Open Cloze


What is history? It is something written by the winners. There is a stereotype that history should be focused on the rulers, like _____ or Trotsky. As a result, people in many countries, like mine, Russia, look at history as something that was predetermined or __________ by the leaders, and common people could not influence it in any way. Many Russians today do not believe that Russia could ever have been or ever will be a truly democratic nation, and this is due to the way history has been framed to the citizens of Russia. And this is not true.

To _____ it, I spent two years of my life trying to go 100 years back, to the year 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution. I _____ myself, what if the ________ and ________ existed 100 years ago? So last year, we built a social network for dead people, named Project1917.com. My team and I created our software, _________ and uploaded all possible real _______ and letters written by more than 3,000 people 100 _____ ago. So any user of our website or application can follow a news feed for each day of 1917 and read what ______ like Stravinsky or Trotsky, Lenin or Pavlova and others thought and felt. We _____ all those personalities being ________ people like you and me, not demigods, and we see that history consists of their mistakes, fears, weaknesses, not only their "genius ideas."

Solution


  1. lenin
  2. people
  3. diaries
  4. determined
  5. years
  6. digitized
  7. watch
  8. ordinary
  9. facebook
  10. asked
  11. prove
  12. internet

Original Text


What is history? It is something written by the winners. There is a stereotype that history should be focused on the rulers, like Lenin or Trotsky. As a result, people in many countries, like mine, Russia, look at history as something that was predetermined or determined by the leaders, and common people could not influence it in any way. Many Russians today do not believe that Russia could ever have been or ever will be a truly democratic nation, and this is due to the way history has been framed to the citizens of Russia. And this is not true.

To prove it, I spent two years of my life trying to go 100 years back, to the year 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution. I asked myself, what if the internet and Facebook existed 100 years ago? So last year, we built a social network for dead people, named Project1917.com. My team and I created our software, digitized and uploaded all possible real diaries and letters written by more than 3,000 people 100 years ago. So any user of our website or application can follow a news feed for each day of 1917 and read what people like Stravinsky or Trotsky, Lenin or Pavlova and others thought and felt. We watch all those personalities being ordinary people like you and me, not demigods, and we see that history consists of their mistakes, fears, weaknesses, not only their "genius ideas."

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
ordinary people 3


Important Words


  1. application
  2. asked
  3. built
  4. citizens
  5. common
  6. consists
  7. countries
  8. created
  9. day
  10. dead
  11. demigods
  12. democratic
  13. determined
  14. diaries
  15. digitized
  16. due
  17. existed
  18. facebook
  19. fears
  20. feed
  21. felt
  22. focused
  23. follow
  24. framed
  25. history
  26. ideas
  27. influence
  28. internet
  29. leaders
  30. lenin
  31. letters
  32. life
  33. mistakes
  34. named
  35. nation
  36. network
  37. news
  38. ordinary
  39. pavlova
  40. people
  41. personalities
  42. predetermined
  43. prove
  44. read
  45. real
  46. result
  47. revolution
  48. rulers
  49. russia
  50. russian
  51. russians
  52. social
  53. software
  54. spent
  55. stereotype
  56. stravinsky
  57. team
  58. thought
  59. today
  60. trotsky
  61. true
  62. uploaded
  63. user
  64. watch
  65. weaknesses
  66. website
  67. winners
  68. written
  69. year
  70. years